A Big Gamble for the Left: Can Socialism Appeal in a Swing State?

Jeff Hanneman was infuriated to learn about a proposal this spring to build a 220-acre data center on the site of a shuttered paper mill near his house in Wisconsin Rapids, Wis.

Worried that the project would pollute the tranquil waters of the nearby Wisconsin River, Mr. Hanneman, 43, planted a “No Data Center” sign in his yard. And, although he’s a Republican who voted for President Trump, he decided to support a democratic socialist who has called for a pause in data center construction and is running for governor.

“I really don’t think or care about the label,” said Mr. Hanneman, who planted a “Francesca Hong for Governor” yard sign next to the other one. “If she was voted into office, she could do a lot of good things for our state.”

The progressive movement is surging this election cycle, as liberal voters — furious with a Democratic establishment they view as old, tepid and beholden to corporate interests — have ousted incumbents. In particular, socialism (a term politicians once strained to distance themselves from) has surged in popularity on the left, as candidates with that label have won House primaries in New York City, Denver and Philadelphia.

Wisconsin, which Mr. Trump won in 2024, presents a riskier gamble. If Ms. Hong, a 37-year-old Democratic state representative and former restaurant owner, beats several other leading candidates for her party’s nomination, she will face a difficult general-election contest against a Republican. That terrifies some Democrats, who think that moderate and conservative Wisconsinites will roundly reject a socialist.

They are certain that Republicans will weaponize Ms. Hong’s more controversial statements, including old social media posts calling for abolishing the police. Such attacks could hand the governor’s office to Republicans and imperil Democratic efforts to flip the State Legislature.

“This is not the year to test a democratic socialist,” said Joe Wineke, a former state chairman of the Democratic Party. “This isn’t New York.”

Ms. Hong’s supporters insist that she is viable in a general election. They argue that growing frustration over data centers and rising prices are causing such populist aims as free health care and a wealth tax to resonate with both parties. The bigger challenge is conditioning voters not to be alarmed by the word “socialism,” they said.

“Progressives’ policies, when listed in a vacuum, are independently popular,” said William Walter, executive director of Our Wisconsin Revolution, the state version of Our Revolution, the left-wing organization started by Senator Bernie Sanders. “But when they’re tied back to the idea of socialism, that buzzword trigger word turns off voters.”

Selling Socialism in Trump Country

Ms. Hong’s socialist ideology is not the only quality that makes her an unconventional candidate.

Soft-spoken yet foulmouthed, she dresses casually on the trail and wears friendship bracelets. She proudly displays a “Bucks in Six” tattoo on her calf — a reference to the Milwaukee Bucks’ 2021 N.B.A. championship.

A child of Korean immigrants, Ms. Hong dropped out of college to work in restaurants in Madison, climbing the ladder from dishwasher to executive chef. In 2016, she opened her own restaurant, Morris Ramen, which closed in 2024 because of economic challenges. She continues to work as a chef and bartender while running her campaign.

Ms. Hong’s working-class origins and economic struggles are central to her candidacy, which she frames as a fight between everyday Americans and the moneyed elite.

She was sued in May over nearly $30,000 in credit card debt, which she has since paid off. She said in a statement last month that she was “disappointed debt is portrayed as a moral failing, especially when people can’t afford the basics of daily life.”

Ms. Hong’s message and online fluency have appealed to young people and have sprung her into the top tier of candidates, though she expects to trail her rivals in campaign-finance reports due out later this month.

Ms. Hong would be the first democratic socialist governor in U.S. history, and sometimes draws comparisons to Zohran Mamdani, the democratic socialist mayor of New York City who shocked the establishment with his victory last year.

But Mr. Mamdani did not need to convert Trump supporters in deeply liberal New York. Ms. Hong, in contrast, has crisscrossed Wisconsin’s rolling hills and open plains, hoping to steer conservative factory workers, dairy farmers and cranberry growers toward her ideas.

Last week she attended Musky Fest, a celebration honoring local fishing tradition in rural Hayward, where revelers crowned the Little Miss Musky Queen. Musky is a nickname for muskellunge, a freshwater fish.

Ms. Hong struck up a conversation with Robert Olson, who sported a “Trump 2028” hat, and they found common ground on issues including mental health services and teacher salaries. “I feel like I’m talking to my people!” she exclaimed.

When Mr. Olson, 74, made light of transgender people, Ms. Hong stared at the ground and smiled slightly before pivoting to safer topics. After she walked away, Mr. Olson seemed impressed. He swore he would consider voting for her, even after learning about her political leanings.

“She’s got her mind on the issues,” he said. “And she never said what party she’s with, which to me isn’t that important.”

Ms. Hong also charmed Bob and Pam Boesch, who were selling decorated gourds under a tent — and who agreed with her about the need for affordable housing.

Informed later that Ms. Hong was a democratic socialist, Ms. Boesch, 71, struggled to square that with their conversation.

“Oh, really? Wow, being as sensible as she is, too,” Ms. Boesch said. She said she would probably vote for Representative Tom Tiffany, the likely Republican nominee.

‘Control-Alt-Delete’ Data Centers

The idea that Republicans might be fed up enough to cross party lines is more than anecdotal.

In March, 56 percent of respondents to a Marquette University Law School Poll survey said they disapproved of Mr. Trump’s performance, and pluralities said that Mr. Trump’s tariffs were hurting the economy and hampering farmers.

Ms. Hong’s allies also cite research showing growing income inequality, a drastic spike in state home prices since 2020 and hospital prices that are among the highest in the country.

Wisconsin’s economy is still performing well by some metrics, according to Jason Stein, the president of the nonpartisan Wisconsin Policy Forum. Unemployment, for instance, is below the national average. But Mr. Stein said he was struck by more than a third of Wisconsinites’ saying the cost of living was their top issue. He agreed that signs were emerging that voters were ready for a lurch to the left.

Ms. Hong’s best pitch to Republicans might be her opposition to the data centers that are powering the artificial intelligence boom, and that residents fear are gobbling up land, water, electricity and tax breaks while offering little in return.

Some have argued that the centers could rejuvenate communities hollowed out by manufacturing declines, and the construction industry has celebrated new job opportunities. But 70 percent of Wisconsin residents, including 55 percent of Republicans, agree that the costs of data centers outweigh the benefits, according to another Marquette Law Poll from February.

Ms. Hong was the only Democratic candidate at a forum last month to express support for a one-year moratorium on data center construction, a plan she calls “Control-Alt-Delete.” (Former Lt. Gov. Mandela Barnes, a Democrat and another leading contender, has now also called for a pause until regulations are in place, while a third, current Lt. Gov. Sara Rodriguez, has advocated more regulation but not a blanket moratorium.)

Ms. Hong believes that voters of all stripes are fed up with the economic imbalance that the data center issue raises.

“It’s a way to start talking about corporate greed and corporate control,” she said in an interview. “Wisconsin is not for sale to Big Tech.”

Many Wisconsinites agree. In Wisconsin Rapids, the plan for the data center appears to be on pause, and activists are working to kill it for good. One of them, Marissa Johnson, 42, an independent voter who hasn’t made up her mind yet on the governor’s race, said the issue was resonating so strongly that she had heard both Democrats and Republicans in town talking about voting for Ms. Hong.

“It’s so important that they’re willing to overlook a socialist label,” she said.

Outside a Walmart in town, more than a dozen locals said they were against the data center project. But none of the Republicans indicated that it would sway them from their party affiliation.

Doug Kaehn, 71, said he was a Republican who favored data center regulation and would consider voting for a Democrat, with one condition.

“As long as they’re not a socialist,” he said.

Still, electing a left-wing candidate in a swing state may not be so far-fetched.

The progressive movement traces its origins to the late 19th-century, when Milwaukee elected a succession of “sewer” socialist mayors, so named for their focus on public works such as sanitation systems. More recently, the state has lived up to its battleground status by ping-ponging between hard-core conservatives, including Senator Ron Johnson and former Gov. Scott Walker, and staunch liberals such as Senator Tammy Baldwin.

This year, Democrats hope to build on the tenure of Gov. Tony Evers, who is retiring. But Ms. Hong is not guaranteed to be the left’s standard-bearer. At a forum in Madison hosted by a labor union, attendees said they were torn between Ms. Hong and several others in the six-person field, including State Senator Kelda Roys, Mr. Barnes and Ms. Rodriguez.

Some Republicans say they’re hoping for a matchup with Ms. Hong. “People in both parties would say that’s our best-case scenario,” Brian Schimming, the Wisconsin G.O.P. chairman, said.

Mr. Barnes and Ms. Rodriguez are essentially making the case that they have similarly transformational ideas to boost the working class but are more electable than Ms. Hong.

“They want somebody who’s going to win at the end of the day,” Ms. Rodriguez, a former E.R. nurse, said.

Running “in a safe Democratic jurisdiction is one thing, but actually showing up and making the case where people might be a little bit more hesitant, that’s a completely different story,” said Mr. Barnes, who ran unsuccessfully for Senate in 2022.

Ms. Hong’s answer to such arguments is to muse that, in some ways, she has more in common with the working-class Trump supporters at Musky Fest than with the Democratic establishment.

“I have the advantage of not being a career politician,” she said. “The people I feel like I relate to, even if there’s cultural differences and political differences, are the folks I talked to today.”